Playing the cards

[vanillabean]

I was thinking of how best to distribute my cards. Not by color, status or any sort of visible coolness to be displayed up on a shelf in my home as guests come over or at the store as I spread out my wallet to impress people around me in line. What I had in mind was more like a flow across the month. Rather than a paycheck alignment, I was thinking along the line of scores. How to squeeze the most updates out of my myFICO monitoring subscription and in parallel high-yielding the monthly scores from my credit cards and banks.

Of course leaving balances on cards is unavoidable to get there, but I don’t have a problem with it, as today’s scores such as FICO 8 is far less harsh about it than the mortgage scores of yesterday. So I am placing my cards evenly throughout the month, keeping similar cards not close to each other in time. For instance I get the EX 8 from Amex twice a month, so those two cards are half a month apart. I also keep my Alaska card and my Discover card half a month apart, as they both provide the TU 8.

I was wondering if you had any suggestions that you would like to add.

[Anonymous]

I think you are asking about calling your issuers and arranging to have the statement dates on your cards spread out gradually over the month.  And you would be doing this so that you could get more FICO 8 updates.  Am I right?

If a person has a myFICO subscription it's a great idea (assuming as you say that you typically have most of your cards showing a balance, which will trigger the myFICO alerts).  I do not have a myFICO subscription myself, because the 3-4 hundred dollars a year is more than I want to spend.  I just use the free scores I get from the cards themselves.   But if a person plans to have a myFICO subscription anyway, I think it is a nice idea, one I have suggested to people before.

That said, you seem to also believe that spreading the statement dates will also increase the frequency of scores you get from the cards themselves -- and of that I am skeptical, though I would be happy to be shown otherwise.  I have three different Citi cards, for example, and I don't think that this gets me my Citi FICO 8 BE score updated three times a month.  Whether I have six Citi cards, or one, I still think Citi updates my score once per month.

Likewise I have four BOA cards and I think I only get one TU FICO 8 updated per month.  Same for my two Amex cards -- still only one EX update per month.

Of course if you had a Chase Slate and an Amex Blue Cash you would indeed get an EX FICO 8 from each, but it's not clear to me that they'll generate them based on your statement date.

Still nice idea about the myFICO impact -- spreading the statement dates will indeed get you a lot more alerts, and more importantly will increase the probability that the text explanation accompanying the alert is the actual reason for the score change as well.

[mitchblue]

I didn't do it for any reason other than it was something to do. Changed one CC issuer to the 1st, next one on the 3rd, then the 5th and so on.. I have no myFico sub's, but it makes it easier for me to remember when things get paid. I did it alphabetically too, Amex on the 1st, Barclay on the 3rd etc..This is probably not what you mean but nonetheless I feel like an innovator ;-)